Commercial buildings typically include large open office areas which are divided into smaller work spaces or workstations by any of a number of space divider and panel systems that have been developed therefor. These space divider arrangements typically employ upright space-dividing wall panels which serially connect together to subdivide the office area into a plurality of smaller workstations of desired size and configuration. Such panels are typically less than floor-to-ceiling height, and cooperate with other furniture components to define an equipped workstation. These components may include work surfaces, file cabinets, shelf units and the like which mount directly on and are supported by the wall panels, and may also include freestanding furniture components such as tables, chairs and file cabinets. A wide variety of such wall panel systems are known.
These space-dividing wall panels may be preferred in many cases over the well known method of constructing “hard” or permanent architectural building walls such as by the use of studs and drywall. Known wall panel systems achieve substantially the same result of subdividing a building space, while also providing flexibility in being able to disassemble and move such walls when reconfiguring the building space.
In subdividing open office areas into individual workstations, the individual wall panel assemblies have a variety of constructions. Typically, a plurality of upright space-dividing wall panels are employed which serially connect together through two-panel straight or angled connections, or through suitable three or four-panel connections, to subdivide the office area into the plurality of smaller workstations.
In one type of arrangement, a common panel construction is used to construct all of the walls of the workstations whereby each panel is individually connectable with serially-adjacent panels through the aforementioned straight or corner connections. With such an arrangement, a group of workstations can be formed, for example, with a common central section of wall panels separating one row of workstations on one side of the central section from a separate row of workstations formed on the opposite side thereof.
In these conventional wall panel systems, provision usually is made for the mounting of various office furniture components thereto such as desks, overhead storage cabinets, shelves and the like. To accommodate these furniture components, the wall panels are typically constructed with load-bearing, structurally rigid internal frames, which bear the load of the equipment mounted thereon. These frames often include slots, channels and the like to which the furniture components as well as other wall panels are mounted. The frames then are provided with aesthetic sheet-like covers which mount to the internal frame to close off the internal cavities. Typically, these covers are removable, and do not serve to structurally rigidify the frame.
Since each workstation usually requires power as well as communications capability such as for computers and telephones or the like, the wall panels preferably have power and telecommunications cabling within interior raceways thereof. The covers provide removable access to such interior chambers for the laying and routing of cabling.
For a load-bearing wall panel system, the costs are more significant to accommodate the load-bearing needs of such system.
It is an object of the invention to provide a readily reconfigurable space-dividing architectural wall system which provides a lower cost, and more flexible solution for subdividing building spaces.
In view thereof, the present invention relates to a space-dividing architectural wall system, which comprises lower cost, but structurally capable wall panels to create work spaces in an open building area. The wall panels of such system are defined by a less-complex construction comprising elongate internal support rails preferably oriented in parallel and facing panels that are non-removably fastened to the opposite faces of the internal rails to define a structurally rigid tubular structure. The rails maintain the facing panels in spaced relation and the rails and facing panels are fixed together to define a rigid wall panel. The wall panels therefore preferably define rigid box-like structures that can be oriented horizontally and stacked one above the other, or oriented vertically and positioned sidewardly adjacent to each other. These fundamental box-like wall structures provide the basic building blocks for constructing building walls in a variety of configurations. While these walls provide advantages of conventional walls using typical construction materials, they also provide substantial flexibility in configuring and reusing the wall panels and fitting the wall panels to specific office spaces.
Since the rails are oriented in parallel and since cross-rails are not required to be cross-connected to the support rails due to the structural rigidity of the facing panels, the wall panels essentially can be open ended in the lengthwise directions of the support rails which provides internal access to these panel cavities defined between the support rails. The panel cavities allow for the laying of cabling therethrough, and the facing panels can be ported in the field such as by available cutting tools, for mounting of electrical receptacles and the like.
With this construction, the facing panels form part of the rigid panel structure in that the support rails provide some strength and rigidity but the facing panels also provide rigidity lengthwise relative to the rails and also crosswise or laterally relative thereto. Accordingly, the facing panels themselves when bonded to the support rails provide load-bearing support to the wall panel. Notably, the rigidity of the facing panels is reinforced by the bonding to the support rails which allows a particular wall panel to be oriented either vertically wherein the support rails extend vertically, or horizontally wherein the support rails extend horizontally. When oriented horizontally, the face-wise rigidity of the facing panels is able to carry vertical loads independent of the support rails which extend horizontally and therefore do not carry the vertical loads. In this instance, the support rails would structurally support the facing panels by preventing bowing or buckling of the facing panel under vertical load since the support rails are bonded to the opposite facing panels and maintains same in parallel, planar orientations relative to each other. While the facing panels can provide structural support solely by their inherent rigidity, the facing panels may also comprise additional structural support through the provision of other rigidifying means. For example, a facing panel may be provided with reinforcement structure such as internal ribs on the inside panel faces within the cavities which ribs may be attached by bonding or other means to the inside faces wherein one example of such ribs could be defined by rails having a v-shaped cross-section which are bonded to the inside panel face. The ribs also could be formed integral with the facing panel such as by corrugations or ridges formed in the panel material such as by molding or pressing of the facing panel. The ribs may extend lengthwise or crosswise or at angular orientations relative to these directions, or even be provided so as to extend in two or more of these directions, such as in a grid pattern. Preferably, the reinforcement structure on the facing panels is not fixed to the support rails, and preferably has a relatively low profile so as to keep the cavities open within the panel interior to allow for the passage of air, cabling or the like.
As an additional means of providing reinforcement to the facing panels, the cavities could be partially or completely filled with a flowable filler material such as foam that bonds to the interior cavity faces defined at least by the facing panels. The foam then hardens and rigidifies the wall panel structure without requiring cross-wise extending cross rails joined to the support rails in a rectangular frame like conventional wall panels. The foam could completely fill a cavity or could only partially fill a cavity so that cable or air passages are formed in the cavity in combination with the filler material which bonds between or forms a reinforcing bridge between the facing panels within a cavity.
The cavities also may be filled with insulation materials for sound absorption and reduction. The insulation materials need not be bonded to the facing panels.
The support rails at the opposite side edges of the facing panels also have a preferred profile which forms structurally rigid joints between two serially-adjacent wall panels. Preferably, the edge-located support rails are configured to provide an interfitting, self aligning construction with no separate or loose fasteners when joining two wall panels together. In the preferred form of the invention, adjacent wall panels could be locked together at their side edges solely by displacement of one wall panel toward the other. As such, the wall panels can be connected directly together along their longitudinal side edges in a variety of configurations. For example, the wall panels can be configured so as to extend floor-to-ceiling or terminate at shorter heights below the ceiling. Also, the wall panels can be stacked together when oriented horizontally, or positioned side-by-side when oriented vertically, or joined together in combinations of horizontal and vertical orientations. The horizontally stacked wall panels and their edge-connecting support rails allow for wall runs of panels having substantial lengths while minimizing the necessity of perpendicular support structures such as return walls, building posts or the like. These wall runs preferably can span 24 feet between the supports.
Also, the support rails preferably are configured to optionally include off-modular mounting rails that allow for the connection of various furniture components thereto in both modular and off-modular locations along the length of a wall panel.
Preferably, the facing sheets are formed of readily available and typically inexpensive sheets of known architectural or construction materials such as gypsum board, R-board, particle board, mineral board, and cement fiber board, wherein the support rails can be formed of metal studs and insulation may also be provided for improved acoustic performance.
If desired, sheet-like removable covers may be mounted over the facing sheets to vary the aesthetic appearance of the wall panels. If desired, the facing sheets can be thin structurally rigid materials provided in combination with the covers so as that the total thickness of these two layers is essentially the same as conventional facing sheets such as gypsum board or drywall. This preserves a consistent thickness for the wall panels, whether a single layer of facing sheets are provided on each panel side or else a double layer of facing sheets/covers is provided.
Since the wall panels are constructed of support rails and facing sheets which can be conventional construction materials, the wall panels may be readily field cuttable to vary the overall panel length to the space dimensions of the building space. As such, the wall panels can be readily cut to length in the field by an installer to readily adapt the wall panels to the building space and the wall panels need not be restricted to lengths defined during manufacture. This also allows the panel ends to preferably be provided with a right angled edge relative to the panel side edges, and then be field cut at angles which might be dictated by the slope of a floor and/or ceiling.
Other objects and purposes of the invention, and variations thereof, will be apparent upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.
Certain terminology will be used in the following description for convenience in reference only and will not be limiting. The words “up”, “down”, “right” and left” will designate directions in the drawings to which reference is made. The words “in” and “out” will refer to directions toward and away from, respectively, the geometric center of the device and designated parts thereof. The words “proximal” and “distal” will refer to the orientation of an element with respect to the device. Such terminology will include derivatives and words of similar import.